


Falling

by SpaceAceAmeko



Series: Samsara [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alienation, Future black ice if you squint, Kind of like a corssover between the book and movie ishly, Post-movie fic, anger issues, barely, gory-ish? maybe, i still have no idea what im writing, in future chapters, just pitch struggles, people teaming up against pitch because they always do, pitch struggles with himself, prepare to feel things for pitch, totally haven't worked on this in 5 years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-20 18:03:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13723104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceAceAmeko/pseuds/SpaceAceAmeko
Summary: It felt like I was falling— falling and drowning at the same time. I couldn't escape, there was no way... I just didn't want to be alone anymore. But it just seems like I will keep on falling, and falling, and falling further down the hole...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Welcome! To this fic I'm moving from my fanfic.net account to here and picking it up (after abandoning it for like five years lmao). Please suffer these feelings I feel for Pitch, our tragic hero._
> 
> _If you like my work,[buy me a coffee!](http://buymeacoff.ee/xLWys1YhO)_

The only thing he could remember was fear. From the very moment he woke up. And darkness.   
  
He was surrounded in it. Drowning in it. There was no way of escape.   
  
Fear gripped at his chest, clawing up his throat and he wanted to scream.   
  
But he couldn't.   
  
How did he get there? What happened?   
  
… Who was  _ he? _   
  
Now  _ that _ was something that could not seem to come to him. Faint feelings of demons clawing at him, pulling him into the darkness. A faint scream, a shrill shriek of a little girl and a plea for help. His head ached at the thought.   
  
He, whoever he was, steeled himself to get away from the darkness.   
  
_ "Pitch Black." _   
  
The darkness called. It called over and over to him.   
  
_ Pitch Black. _   
  
Was that his name? He brushed off the hisses and whispers and tried to get out of the inky blackness that surrounded him, preventing him from seeing even his own nose.   
  
After long moments, his fear left him and the dark began to hold comfort for him. The cold biting black was comforting around him. Not as fearsome as he thought. Inviting and even soft.   
  
The black let him move, showing him some light source that helped Pitch accentuate his surroundings.   
  
He couldn't help but taking a gander of his new surroundings. Everywhere he looked, the darkness around him was prevalent. There were scarce others around him.   
  
However, when they took a gander towards Pitch, they coward away and skitter from him. And for some reason, he felt an overwhelming sense of happiness. Of  _ power. _

* * *

 

  
Throughout the years, he had felt more magnificent than he could ever remember.   
  
Too bad he could not remember. It might have made his experience all the better.   
  
Throughout the "Dark Ages," as the humans so nicely put it, he had been having so much fun devouring the fears of the living.   
  
And then the man came to live on the moon. And changed everything.   
  
Got these so called "Guardians" together to stop his reign and plunge the world in light. Force him into submission and back into the lair he had learned to call him home. His  _ prison. _

* * *

  
Years later, Pitch came to learn a new technique to send his nightmares. Turning those precious little gifts of his into sand. And he set forth on revenge.

* * *

  
It was easy enough to get the four of the Guardians together. Even easier to gather Toothiana's forces and all those teeth she collected throughout the years. Letting his Nightmares take care of the rest.   
  
"Hang on. Is that Jack Frost?" Pitch asked, moving from shadow to shadow with ease and slight boredom. He gave a chuckle. "Since when are you all so chummy?"   
  
"We're not." Jack replied, searching for the source of the voice.   
  
"Oh good," there was slight sarcasm in his voice as he continued. "Then I'm going to ignore you. But, you must be used to that by now."   
  
There was a cruelly amused smirk on his lips. But that statement of his struck to close to his own home for him to utter it so carelessly. There was a painful squeeze in his heart at his own words.   
  
"There's no such thing as the Boogeyman." Pitch mimicked the words of mothers gone passed telling their children. "Well, that's all about to change." There was a smirk on his lips and a chuckle deep in his throat.   
  
He didn't want to be ignored anymore. He didn't want to be alone.   
  
"There will be nothing but fear, and darkness."   
  
The things he woke up to. The things he eventually let comfort him because he had had no one else.   
  
"And me." He added as an afterthought, rubbing his hands together. "It's your turn not to be believed in."

* * *

Sandy and Jack advanced on him in the road as he pleaded with them.   
  
"I'll tell you what," Pitch said and his demeanor changed. Eyebrows brought together and his lips turned upwards in a cruel smirk. "You can have them back."   
  
Pitch's nightmares took flight when the other guardians appeared. Most keeping everybody but Sanderson busy as Pitch got ready to shoot his arrow.   
  
"I'd say sweet dreams, but there aren't any left.."

* * *

  
It had been going so great, so great. So far so good in his plan to rid the world of all that goodness and hope shenanigans.   
  
If only, if only… He could get Jack on his side.   
  
The spectacle they made after he had gotten rid of the Sandman, he couldn't let go of how right it felt. The black sand caught between the frost and being broken like black snowflakes.   
  
Pitch was pleasantly surprised Jack had arrived in his lair.   
  
But he knew what the frost spirit was looking for.   
  
"Well, fear not." Pitch began as he cornered Jack against a wall. "For the answer to that is right here." He held out the golden capsule to Jack.   
  
"Of course I know! You're Jack Frost! You make a mess wherever you go." Pitch smiled in amusement. "Why, you're doing it right now."   
  
"What did you do?"

* * *

Pitch watched as Jack tried to throw his golden capsule of memories off the cliff.  
  
"But I understand." Pitch matched Jack's frost with black sand, match for match.  
  
"You don't understand anything!"  
  
"No? I don't know what it's like to be cast out?" Pitch argued back, emotions running high. "To not be believed in?"  
  
Pitch appeared before Jack, arms down by his thighs as he tried to tell Jack he knew how it felt.  
  
"To long for a family.." His voice was almost desperate as Jack aimed his scepter at him. "All those years in the shadows, I thought, no one else knows what this feels like." He stares at the ground and shakes his head. He was letting himself out in the open too much and didn't realize how much he was putting on the line. His line. Pitch's voice had been so lonely, despondent, melancholic.  
  
"But now I see that I was wrong." Childish hope filled him as he saw Jack put down his scepter. The way he looked at Jack, the one who _could_ understand the feelings.  
  
"You don't have to be alone, Jack." Pitch tried, seeing the boy lower his weapon. "I believe in you. And I know children will, too."  
  
When Pitch talked about their possible future, he was radiating joy and hope. Of that oh-so seemingly promising land consisting of all that is Pitch Black and Jack Frost, motioning up to the giant spiked formation of ice and black dream sand.  
  
"What goes together better than cold and dark? We can make them believe!" Ecstatic, he couldn't form a sentence cohesive enough to sound convincing. "We'll give them a world where everything, _everything_ is…" He tried to find the word. Something that could fit. Something along the lines of _them,_ and _beauty, freedom._ _Perfection._  
  
".. And that's not what I want."  
  
When Jack turned around to leave Pitch, demanding to be left alone. He was glad that the frost spirit didn't see that little spark of hope die, stomped out like good dreams were with his nightmares.  
  
When Pitch had propositioned Jack, he had thought… even for an inkling of a second, maybe more, that they could..  
  
Pitch was not prepared for a rejection. And that rejection hurt more than anything he had experienced. More than what he felt when he suddenly woke up. Disbelief ran high on his features, eyebrows knit together in remorse.  
  
The Nightmare King's lips pursed and a scowl came to his face. It was time to get serious.

* * *

  
For a moment, he was having the most amazing dream that he could not remember. He dreamt of warmth and happy times. Light…now… when had that been?   


* * *

How could this have failed?   
  
Jack Frost… he had happened.   
  
When he had awoken, he was frightened to see the children having so much fun and running and laughing. Throwing snowballs and smiling.   
  
Disbelief coursed through his body.   
  
When the child ran through him, he felt a cold chill at his core. His heart wrenched and he clutched at his chest, the first fear he had felt returning to him.   
  
He was alone again.   
  
Everything he worked so hard for… everything he had worked to achieve in the years passed..   
  
And then he ran. He didn't know where he was running. All he knew was he had to run. Get away. Animalistic instincts telling him to run before he got killed.   
  
He had lost a tooth, but what does that compare to when he lost all his power?   
  
"There will always be fear." A last ditch effort to make them just fear him, if even a tiny bit.   
  
"It looks like it's your fear they smell." Jack Frost had responded with a signature quirk of his lips.   
  
That had hurt, too. Because he had felt rejection yet another time. Pitch froze, looking around at the nightmares riling up. He could only take a breath before he took off running again.   
  
Running away from these demons of the nights seemed so familiar. Where had this happened? But the encroaching fear grew and grew. He knew he would get swallowed up by the darkness.   
  
Would he remember who he was this time around?   
  
Pitch could only chant his mantra of  _ "no, no!" _ as the fearlings took after him. They had swallowed him up in a black sandstorm and carried him back to the hole in the ground that lead to his lair.   
  
He fought, all the while, as best he could. Flailing his arms and legs, raking his nails on the ground and getting dirt underneath them. The bed broke when they dragged him inside. His arms and hands being cut and bloodied as he continued to grasp anything,  _ anything,  _ to keep him on the surface.   
  
_ Don't let them get me. _   
  
Splinters dug into his skin and sharp rocks cut him as he was thrashed from one side of the hole to the other.   
  
He no longer felt that comfort of the dark. He felt fear again.   
  
The nightmares dragged him more into the ground. Into the darkness; from where he was born.   
  
He felt the familiar feeling of drowning in that murky ink, the black abyss. Pitch's body got progressively colder until he could scarcely feel his arms and legs.   
  
The chilling was almost welcome.   
  
But that only made him feel more alone… because the cold reminded him of Jack and what happened at Antarctica. It made him sad. He felt a plethora of emotions as he lost himself in the black sea.   
  
Pitch could feel his sub consciousness slipping away. He didn't think he could stay awake much longer. He tried desperately to hold on to the sight of the black sea.   
  
But another type of darkness intruded on the corners of his only black vision. He could feel a pressure at the front of his lobe, signs he can't stay awake. They pressed and pressed and pressed…   
  
Pitch finally gave in and closed his eyes. Letting the loneliness of the darkness overcome him, the fear neutralized to replace disappointment and trepidation.   
  
He didn't think he would remember who he was next time he woke up… Just like last time.   
  
The Nightmare King supposed it was because of his own foolishness; how could he even think he could have a comrade? A companion? Someone to believe in him and tell him there was nothing to be afraid of…   
  
It was foolish and stupid and naïve of him. He vowed that when he awoke and he remembered who he was, to not trust anyone except his army of nightmare creatures.   
  
Just once, he wanted to know what having the warmth of a family felt like. But it looked like he was never going to find out.   
  
And he resigned to his fate and let the black engulf him.   
  
Pitch hoped it would last forever…   



	2. Chapter 2

When he came to, there was only darkness. Not even shades to signify a light source anywhere, just a darkness that you would only find in the deepest part of the cave where no light shone, buried underneath the ground, or just in deep slumber.  
  
But he was not asleep.  
  
Pitch had opened his eyes, blinking them open with little difficulty as there was no offending light to strain his eyes.  
  
He was just floating, as he had been the first time he ever awoke to this black abyss that he was becoming so familiar with.  
  
He did not question where he was this time; subconsciously he knew. He did not fear when he moved and could get nowhere, did not fear the encroaching black ink when he felt it course through him.  
  
He simply was.  
  
With the black, consumed by it. Allowed it to reign. But although he was not a stranger to the dark, he could not remember what had happened.  
  
With little difficulty he moved his body to what he felt was a standing position and marched. He didn't know to where, since he couldn't even see. He marched without a destination, hoping in the back of his mind that he can come to read the shadows better with a source of light.  
  
And eventually the shadows bent and gave way to shades of grey and the faintest of light.  
  
Faintly, he realizes it is his lair, but he stops moving once the edges soften up and his eyes adjust to the very minimal light that shone through a few feet away.  
  
Pitch blinks owlishly and stares down at the ground and wonders how long he has been asleep. Faintly, he remembers the last time he woke up to this darkness and had power and smiles at the thought.  
  
The smile disappears when he cannot remember what happened before he slipped into the darkness.  
  
Last time… He had fought the darkness to wake up, this time it was the cause. It called out to him softly. Something was looking for him.  
  
The Nightmare King walked onward towards the brightening light, unaware of someone else in his lair. He only supposed it was his ally, another creature of the dark, the one that kept him company.  
  
As he walked, the light became closer and his surroundings ever that much clearer. Cages hung above him as he walked the main floor to a large brass globe, alit with glowing dots that reminded him of fireflies.  
  
He slowed in his brisk walk, eyes always ahead, and stopped by the globe to touch a part of Europe, gliding his fingers over the lights to see some of them flicker only slightly before he let his hand slide off the globe entirely.  
  
"Pitch..?" A soft voice called, one he had known but didn't know from where. A sharp pain in his chest, this voice would bring about sad memories.  
  
A feeling of loneliness came back for a second before he forgot it. He had the shadows.  
  
He wandered his eyes to the left, surprised but not surprised to find a short, slender male standing but two yards away.  
  
The crystalline blue eyes and soft snow-white hair seemed eerily familiar as he stared at the pale skin, blue hoodie, tan capris, and shoeless feet. He took a moment to himself, just blinking every half a minute and thinking if he knew him.  
  
There was a name on the tip of his tongue.  
  
"Jack Frost." He said more to himself than the person standing across from him. The boy clenched the staff he held as he eyed the man wearily. Pitch could gather no more information about the boy; the darkness had eaten the more harsh memories of his rejection, of the fight for the modern world.  
  
After another moment of the two just staring at each other and gauging reactions, Pitch looked away first. His eyes traveled back to the globe. Pitch ran a finger over a part of Russia languidly, softly, around a blinking dot.  
  
"What happened to you?" The smaller man said, venturing just a step closer. He seemed confused, almost afraid of the man in front of him.  
  
As he should be, his subconscious told him. It also let him feel a spark of anger, at what Pitch couldn't say, because it quickly left as fast as it came. His eyes strayed from the globe once more to stare into the eyes of the purest blue.  
  
How long had it been since he looked into those eyes? Seen them? He didn't know, couldn't even ask. He did not keep time, that he knew without needing to be reminded. Time is not of the essence for an immortal spirit, it just dragged on.  
  
"How long has it been?" He asked simply. He felt as though he was missing an emotion that was usually put into his voice, and it felt lacking when he questioned the spirit.  
  
"Do you know who I am?" Jack asked instead, ignoring the question posed to him by his nemesis.  
  
"Jack Frost." He said once more, simply. He did not elaborate as he felt something crawling around his feet. Black sand slithered like a snake around his foot and ankle.  
  
"No. I mean do you _know_ who I am?" He didn't want just a name, Pitch understood that, but his mind drew a blank whenever he even wanted to think about the pale boy. He kneeled down and held out his hand for the swirling sand and it sluggishly came to rest on his palm. Preoccupying him with how the sand moved and danced about as he stood back up and felt comfort at the sand's touch. It was familiar.  
  
Pitch could only shake his head once, no remorse for forgetting the spirit, their exchanges however many days or even years prior. In a moment he brought his palm to lips and blew the black sand onto the globe and watched as it sprinkled dynamically around. Swirling around few flickering lights before raising and falling to the floor, crawling away with a piece of inky blackness that seemed to roll around the floor like a slug.  
  
He was so mesmerized by these creatures.  
  
"Do you know who you are?" The boy tried again, a bit of urgency in his voice. He wanted the old him back, he supposed. Or something, something to make this exchange between them normal because Pitch had a hunch their small, soft talk was not the norm between them.  
  
"I am Pitch Black." He said back, turning to Jack Frost with a blank expression that did not give way to any emotion besides neutrality. "The Nightmare King." Again, simply, truthfully. He walked a step and watched as the boy stiffened, maybe preparing for an attack.  
  
Pitch looked to his side and outstretched his hand to the darkness. It engulfed his arm to his elbow before tendrils of ink black started to curl around and slither out of the dark shadows onto his arm. He looked back to Jack to see his face contorted into an emotion he could not name. He dropped his arm from the black, but some of the ink stayed and coiled around his arms and shimmied across his skin.  
  
The creature was comforting, even held the slightest bit of warmth. Perhaps it was because it was familiar to him, it was home.  
  
"Do you know what happened?"  
  
"I do not feel obligated to answer." Pitch believed the simplicity of his answers were grating on the smaller man's nerves. He calmly walked by Jack, eyes forward and let his feet lead him to whatever other corridor. As he passed he felt the boy tense in his presence. He felt the coolness radiating from his skin.  
  
That felt comforting too.  
  
Pitch had not looked back to see if Jack had left or not, the light was beginning to irritate his eyes.

* * *

  
Had it been only months before he awoke from his slumber again? Maybe it had been a decade, or a century? A millennia, maybe?  
  
He couldn't find it in himself to care that much. But he was finding that he very much liked it when the lights on the globe flickered. It made him feel happy, even. Or maybe something resembling power.  
  
Over the course of however long, he didn't know since he didn't keep track, he finally ventured outside of his lair.  
  
Carefully, he was lifted by his darkness out of the rabbit hole that lead to his residency, into the moonlit scenery.  
  
It wasn't until a few steps had been taken that he stepped out of the way of an oncoming boomerang. He stepped out of the way a second time when it came back. The darkness that slithered at his feet hissed and made bigger movements. Pitch glanced down at his pets, as he had come to call them, then up and into the direction of the weapon.  
  
"'Bout time you crawled out of that hole." He heard an irritated, ready for battle, voice talk. He looked at the giant rabbit with disinterest, much like he did his first encounter with someone other than darkness. His hands were lax at his sides and he continued to look around to the rabbit's left and right, finding three others gathered near him, weapons poised for a fight.  
  
He blinked owlishly at them before he turned his attention back to where he was walking, ignoring the Guardians of Childhood in favor of his walk in the snow.  
  
"Hey, hey! Where ya think you're going, mate?" The giant rabbit spoke again and the group decidedly surrounded him, one person to each direction. He stopped his languid walk to look over to the Easter Bunny.  
  
Pitch said nothing and waited for them to make the first move, though he would rather not start a fight. He didn't feel much up to fight. But the darkness at his feet grew restless and some crawled up to his shoulder and nuzzled his neck. The four were still poised for battle, and he wondered why they would waste energy on such a pose when he had no intention of fighting back. He knew if a fight did break out, he could just fade down into his shadows and go elsewhere.  
  
He had done so, so many times back in his domain he felt comfortable enough to do it outside.  
  
Pitch saw the faery-like creature shudder when the tendrils caressed his open skin. He could feel her uncertainty at his unresponsive gestures and apathetic, but still somehow regal, slouch.  
  
"Well?" The rabbit bit, "Aren't you gunna do anything?"  
  
It took Pitch a moment to think up a response that would appease him. Something told him he and the rabbit were not on good terms, but then again, who did he have to be on good terms with? No one he knew, certainly, besides the darkness.  
  
"No, obviously. Personally, I never knew kangaroos could fight."  
  
The rabbit seethed, as he always does when he was called a kangaroo. But the other three were confused. There was no spite in Pitch's voice. Or, rather, it was empty and void of all emotions.  
  
Just as the rabbit preparing itself to attack, a voice rang out clear and crisp.  
  
"Stop!"  
  
Pitch looked up and to the right to see Jack gliding towards them. He felt a slight pain in his chest again, and then that spark of anger. And another of jealousy. They ebbed away within seconds but he wondered which emotion was for whom.  
  
"What is it, Jack?" The faery asked as he floated between Pitch and the rabbit.  
  
"Don't attack! He's harmless." Maybe that wasn't the right term for it, Pitch thought, because he certainly could take on whoever posed a threat, but did he really want to deal with repercussions of not being "harmless"?  
  
The golden man's sand shimmered and plenty of signs went off above his head, none of which Pitch really paid attention to. His eyes where currently on the frost spirit's back, which was to him and rather foolishly, in Pitch's expert opinion, open for an attack.  
  
"He doesn't remember." He said with conviction as he turned back to face Pitch and the Nightmare King could only blink with disinterest. He wondered how long he had been asleep this time. The rest looked skeptically at the opposite pair, they thought Pitch was just really good at faking. And certainly, had he remembered what happened, he probably could pull something along this apathetic façade off.  
  
"Do you remember who these people are?" Jack asked, motioning around to his acquired friends.  
  
Pitch lifted his bored eyes to each of the Guardian's faces and wracked his memories.  
  
"Sandman. Tooth Fairy. Easter Bunny. Santa Claussen." He said, voice not betraying any of the pangs of emotion that hit him.  
  
"But do you know them?" Jack questioned, stressing the word like he did last time. Pitch's eyes left the newly made defensive positions of the strangers and looked back to Jack. It seemed he was the one who wanted to find out what was wrong with him the most though he couldn't fathom why.  
  
Emotionlessly, Pitch replied. "They ruined my plans to take the earth."  
  
Bunnymund had to grit his teeth as Jack signaled him yet again to not attack.  
  
"That doesn't answer my question and you know it, Pitch." Jack replied back, his patience seems to be ebbing but it might just have been his imagination.  
  
"I feel no obligation to reply." The Nightmare King repeated his statement like last time. "Now, if you all will excuse me, my pets are growing restless." The black ink tendrils slid down his lax arms at his side and met with a swirl of black sand that seemed to play together, as if happy they were leaving the unwanted company.  
  
At once he moved, he once again needed to dodge the boomerang that was aimed at him. He stared at the offender when the weapon was caught.  
  
"Is there something you need, Pooka?" The said animal growled in annoyance at the emotionless, bored tone Pitch gave out. This was the most he had spoken since he had awoken.  
  
"Bunny, that's enough!" Jack insisted, standing between Pitch and the offender again. "He doesn't remember. He might remember names and such, but that doesn't give us the right to do this!"  
  
"But Jack, we can't let him get powerful again." Toothiana protested, hummingbird like wings flapping a mile a minute.  
  
As they bickered, Pitch looked around. He had no interest in what they spoke of. When he looked back they were still arguing. He gave a sigh, his walk had been cut short.  
  
"I suppose I shall go on my walk some other day." He announced to no one in particular. That caught the other's attention and they lunged, thinking Pitch would just run away. He watched them as if in slow motion before a cruel smirk crossed his lips. The upturned muscles felt familiar before his smile dropped, and so did he. He fell into the black abyss pooling at his feet. He faintly heard Jack calling him, trying to come after him. But it was too late, he was already gone.

* * *

  
Days later, Pitch presumed, he used his shadows to come to the surface.  
  
His memories have been slowly forming since his awakening. He knew why he felt those pangs of anger and jealousy. He refused to let them consume him again. He didn't feel alone anymore, he had his fearlings and nightmare men and the black creatures.  
  
Or so he told himself.  
  
This time his walk through the dying winter forest did not go interrupted, and he was serene once he came to rest by a frozen lake.  
  
He leaned against a naked tree and stared at the frozen spectacle of wonder. The ice sparkled slightly under the waning moon and Pitch crossed his arms as he just observed the scenery.  
  
Again, he felt a pang of melancholy. It wasn't just because it had been so long for him to enjoy this view. He was lonely. Alone.  
  
He still didn't know how long he had been out. Perhaps those children who he had tried to snuff out their hope had long since grown up and had children of their own. Perhaps they have grown of old age and died and so had their great grandchildren.  
  
"Pitch? What're you doing out here?" A familiar voice questioned from his right. He only stared ahead as he heard the crunch of snow beside him as Jack came closer.  
  
They shared a moment of silence.  
  
"What are you thinking?" Jack asked. It wasn't with suspicion. It was with genuine curiosity. If you saw the Nightmare King stare out serenely at a winter wonderland, you would wonder too why he wasn't out causing fear or trouble.  
  
"How long it has been." It was meant almost as a question to the Winter Prince, but Pitch was unsure he had wanted to know how much time he spent in the black abyss, alone. It was easier to wonder and never search for the answer. His arms were crossed as he leaned left against the tree; the shadows around him seemed alive.  
  
They came to wrap around his feet easily enough, seemingly on edge as if they had to protect him from oncoming danger he did not suspect.  
  
Pitch felt like himself, yet not himself. And yet, those two sides of him were not at war, but at peace. And he questioned why they were not fighting.  
  
"It's been fifteen years…" Jack answered back softly after a moment of silence, coming to stand right next to the spirit of the dark.  
  
Ahh. Fifteen years. That was how long he had slumbered. Compared to how long he had lived, those fifteen years would have flown by in a blink of his eye. This means those children he once wanted to give nightmares to were now adults. Probably, now, they did not believe in the Boogeyman or Santa Claussen.  
  
Pitch knew, somehow and all too well, that the only other reason why the children could see these spirits besides believing was because they were innocent. Innocent, innocent children.  
  
Adults were sullied, broken creatures. There was always some sort of darkness in their hearts. Their corruption disallows them to see the pure creatures Pitch was up against. Only the pure can see the pure, even if the impure believe.  
  
"Pitch?" The frost spirit spoke hushed. "I'm sorry.."  
  
Pitch did not glance at him. Briefly, he had allowed himself to ponder at the reason this boy is sorry. He had a hunch, and shrugged it off.  
  
"There is no need for apologies, Frost."  
  
As he added the last name, he felt himself grow a bit more distant from the being who was physically not one foot away from him. The use of surnames seemed to bring a touch of nostalgia of a past life.  
  
Jack looked at him, that same emotion Pitch couldn't name. He chanced a glance back and caught Jack's brilliant blue eyes.  
  
He hoped it would all end soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Time moved a lot different for a spirit than it did for humans. More so, also, differently for the Nightmare King than it did for other spirits, though the King could only speculate.

 

The frost spirit had told him fifteen years had passed since he last was awake, the beginnings of those old memories pixelating in his mind like the beginning of loss of consciousness. But for him is seemed an endless time has past, and yet even more not a single hour.

 

Tomorrow could be worlds away and a minute before seems decades away. More confusing when the past seemed too far into the future. It was no wonder Pitch cared not for trivial things like time.

 

But even so, Pitch sometimes wishes he could understand these times and put them in order, so as not to be so apathetic to such things. But it flees from him nonetheless and he cared little to find it.

 

The last he had seen of the frost spirit was, in Pitch’s view, months ago. Although he doubts it was that long ago that they stood side by side near the frozen lake. Or maybe it was even longer. But the ice on the lake stayed as it was, if not thicker than before. The chill of the air made harsher by the billowing winds on a moonless night. It was darker than Pitch had seen it before, when he took the chance to venture out of his lair for some fresh air.

 

Pitch liked it a lot better than when the moon was around at all, soaking the lands with its light. But yet, he had to admit, that he liked how when the moon was full it reflected off the glistening snowflakes. The only time he would ever think of the moon as anything but a wretched thing to be destroyed.

 

Pitch breathes it in, the cool, crisp air of winter and the scent of clean air. It made his eyes burn only slightly before they settled.

 

For what could be better together than cold and dark?

 

 _“No, they’ll fear both of us. And that’s not what I want.”_ Pitch sucks in a breath, eyes widening at the glimpse of a memory. _“Now for the last time, leave me alone.”_

 

His widened eyes narrow in a glower at nothing in particular, the indignation and anger he felt rising to boil beneath his chilled skin for far longer than he had felt.

 

_Impudent, egotistical—_

 

And then it had fled. The feeling of rawness, the feeling of rejection and lamentation, of fury felt like that of a woman’s scorn.

 

Gone, poof, in an instant. It was covered by his overwhelming numbness, the same he had felt upon his wakening when he had met Jack Frost for the first time in fifteen years.

 

_It was foolish and stupid and naïve of him. He vowed that when he awoke and he remembered who he was, to not trust anyone except his army of nightmare creatures._

 

* * *

 

Even with the sun soon setting, children were still playing outside. With school out and the days short, their parents allowed them the small pleasure of playing out after dark— that is, so long as they stay within a specified area.

 

And Pitch, the bemused spirit, sat on a lonely park bench across the way, watching them.

 

The shadows and sand danced around his lax form, whispering, _let us go to them._ But that would do nothing. _Then when they are asleep. Let us go to that child._ But Pitch would not let them. At least, not to the child that had caught his eye most of all.

 

A droll, adolescent thing that still believed in the good and the joy of the world. He had heard her tell other children _Jack Frost is so gonna get you for being mean!_ like the spirit would enact vengeance on her behalf. So small, her hair dark brown and long past her shoulders, chubby cheeks that she hadn’t yet grown out.

 

It was only this one, simple, innocent child that he disallowed the nightmares to creep upon.

 

And ever the more pressing issue, he had no idea _why._

 

Why should he care about the wellbeing of such a child? There were hundreds more like her, carbon copies. All children’s nightmares tasted the sweetest and there was so little to feed on that he shouldn’t have given a second thought.

 

Yet he did and it caused him great strife.

 

* * *

 

Months go by with Pitch lazily tailing the child of his current obsession. Between feeding little by little on the nightmares of children and adults and hiding in his lair, he would spend as much time as he could trailing after her, nearly entranced.

 

Pitch had her weekly schedule practically memorized to a _T._

 

_Up at seven, school by nine, out by three, piano lessons until four thirty, home by five, out with friends until eight, dinner at eight thirty, in bed by ten thirty._

 

With varying degrees of each thing she did.

 

And yet still he does not taint her dreams, content, once in a while after the Sandman had come, to watch the swirling sand dance above her head.

 

* * *

 

It was more months still before the leaves fell, signaling the end of summer. Pitch had not tried another uprising, despite the flash of anger and despair he remembers. And all in all, the Guardians left him alone to his own devices, noticing how docile the Nightmare King had seemed to become, none the wiser of his nightly habits of tailing a certain brunet on the precipice of teenage years.

 

A couple more months pass before the first sign of frost on glass and snowflakes on dew would show. When the cold came Pitch felt like he could finally take in a breath, one he’d been longing for since spring melted the snow.

 

Pitch had thought all was well.

 

The Guardians would do as they wish, protect the children, yadda-yadda, and keep him “at bay.” Every once in a while he would get checked up on by none other than Jack Frost, who kept his acquaintance for no longer than a half hour, staring into nothingness as they do so often do in (something Pitch was only seeing in his head) solidarity.

 

With the come of winter the lake froze over, welcoming children to skate on its ice.

 

Families come; parents and children and cousins and all. Together they twirl and skate to their hearts content, well into the night.

 

Pitch stands leaning on a tree, entire lake visible but he invisible to all, as he watches with a festering, bitter feeling of longing.

 

It was no sooner that the family decided to go home that Pitch’s breath left him in a startled grunt and his body was flung further from the lake— into the woods.

 

The hit wasn’t as hard as he had been hit before. It seemed like a warning, if Pitch even tried to put a name to it. Nevertheless it still drudged up an anger in him as he stood, eyes locking onto the Guardians as they formed a semi-circle around him in the clearing he had landed.

 

“Up to your tricks again, Pitch?” North says, swords poised for battle. A battle Pitch was not interested in fighting. _Leave me alone_ was teetering on the tip of his tongue.

 

“Looks like he wants another beat-down.” The Aussie accent fills his ears and it grates at his ears.

 

_“Maybe I’m tired of hiding under beds!”_

 

_“Maybe that’s where you belong!”_

 

Pitch growls, lips upturned in a snarl; the first _actual_ response they had gotten from him since he first woke, apathetic to the Guardians. He feels the hatred and indignation crawl just beneath his skin.

 

Who was _he_ to decide where he belonged? When even Pitch himself did not _choose_ to become this miserable, despicable character who fed on the fears of others.

 

At the obvious sign of aggression they tensed and clutched at their weapons harder, ready for their fight.

 

_“They’re just bad dreams, Jamie.”_

 

How every _single_ time it seemed, throughout the very years, years by years, hour by hour, second by _second_ the Guardians did not take him seriously. Written off as bad dreams, no such thing as the _Boogeyman_.

 

_“You don’t understand anything!”_

 

_“Now for the last time, leave me alone.”_

 

_“It’s over Pitch. There’s no place to hide.”_

 

_“Looks like it’s your fear they smell.”_

 

Pitch did not notice, or if he did he did not care, that the shadows and sand slinking along his legs like a cat grew to massive sizes as the feelings resurfaced, drowning him in his own tribulation. The Guardians took a step back, unaware of his inner turmoil as they wait for the attack and Pitch could faintly smell the fear coming from their pores.

 

 _His power was left unchecked too long, who knows how powerful he had gotten now?_ They seemed to think by the looks on their faces.

 

Pitch growls, releasing a huff of angry air.

 

Then at once, the shadows disbursed, turning into a thick miasma of a fog. Bunny throws his boomerang and it slices through, opening up swipe after swipe of fresh air.

 

Seconds later when the fog cleared Pitch was nowhere to be seen.

 

* * *

 

The Guardians dispersed to cover more ground as they look for their enemy. But with his power to travel by shadows, there’s no telling where Pitch had escaped to.

 

Nevertheless, Jack was determined to find him and—

 

And what? Have a civil talk with him?

 

As he flew across the town, he spotted the lithe form of the Nightmare King on one of the highest buildings in the tiny town. He stood on the rooftop, hands calmly placed on the barricade to go over the roof, face scrunched up in distaste that Jack could only imagine was them breaking his peaceful night.

 

Jack couldn’t decide if he hated this look more, or the blank, nemotionless one. The faces he made in either time didn’t _feel_  right. But who was Jack to say what did? He knew nothing of the Nightmare King besides his deeds and that it was his so-called duty to stop him as a Guardian.

 

“Pitch!” He yells over the wind, landing further than an arm's reach away, just in case, eyes glued on the displeased face of the Nightmare King.

 

“Frost.” He seemed to growl out, contempt soaked his voice, the hateful glare in his eyes suffocating. Without so much as even thinking that Jack would take him down, he turned his head away from the intruding spirit and locked them on to something indiscernible to Jack.

 

He was _ignoring_ Jack.

 

For some reason, Jack felt a bit ashamed at this. Sheepishly, and feeling rather awkward, he sat down on the concrete barricade and looked out to the town below, fiddling with his staff as he tried to think of anything to say.

 

In groups, it was easy to drown out his hesitation and indecision with the other four being so gung-ho. But _here?_ Along with only Pitch and his own thoughts and feelings, it was hard to start. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to know.

 

Jack doesn’t remember what he says when he opened his mouth, just that when he did his eyes were trained on Pitch and he watched the already tense body coil more: his back straightened, shoulders pulled back, his eyes narrowed in a hateful gaze as he jerked his head to him.

 

Then his mouth opens and they argue, the words a blur to Jack.

 

The only thing he knew was that whatever he had said, hurt Pitch all the more.

 

* * *

 

More carefully than before, the Nightmare King watched the child he favorited. It was a nice reprieve from seemingly always being hunted by the do-gooders.

 

Pitch could watch the girl—  _Karin,_ play carefree in the snow, building snowmen and making lumpy shaped snow angels and lose the bitterness he felt towards being hunted. He could feel, at least for a limited time, a sense of peace he got nowhere but the cold, abandoned, frozen lake in the middle of a moonless night, standing alone by the edge of the lake; peaceful yet companionless.

 

There he felt peace, but at the cost of warmth from another.

 

Here he felt peace, but at the cost of yearning for a family.

 

The night was such a simple thing. The children playing on the playground, hanging upside down on the monkeybars.

 

Karin’s tittering laughter rang in his ears, a joyous laughter, one he would happily strip of any other child and feed on their misery.

 

Pitch could feel a pressure building in his head, crushing harder the longer she laughed. Her parents called her to go home, and she laughed, all the while oblivious to Pitch’s plight.

 

The pressure ballooned to a painful ache in his head and he closed his eyes, holding his head, pressing his fingers into his temples.

 

 _“Father! Please,_ please, _open the door!” Her voice sobbed from within the cage. “I’m scared, father.” The voice cried, terrified and cracking from it._

 

_“Help me!” It cried, “help me!”_

 

_“HELP ME!”_

 

Pitch was thrown to the side with enough force to break a human body, breath choked from him.


	4. Chapter 4

Pitch skids on the blacktop of the playground, wincing at the impact. An uglier emotion he has ever felt yet starts to bubble in his chest as he pushes himself off the floor, seething.

 

What had hit him was Sandy’s mallet, easily as half as tall as Pitch. Had he been human, Pitch would have died with the impact. _That_ was not a warning shot. That was the first in many to come.

 

The five stood around in that stupid semi-circle, readying to circle him completely like a band of executioners. Sandy has more than his mallet with him, that golden sand twirling menacingly, signs and symbols flashing angrily above his head, ones Pitch could care less to read or understand as he pushes himself up to his feet, wobbly still from the hit and unbalanced, the headache more than just from the hit.

 

Bunny stood with a boomerang ready to throw, the other in a defensive position.  Tooth floating to his left, wings beating a mile per minute, creating an ongoing buzzing noise that only agitated him more, now fully but unstably on his feet. She had swords in her hands and she was poised to glide forward in a second. North stood at the middle, swords in both hands. Sandy stood left of him, and then there was Jack at the very last of their expanding semi-circle.

 

Jack wasn’t poised to fight, though, if Pitch could even make out correctly his body language. Sure, he held his staff, the end tilted toward Pitch but his face revealed a different emotion that the others didn’t wear. His body was not fully facing Pitch and his staff certainly wasn’t aimed to kill, holding it as an angle as such that it would scarcely miss hitting Pitch in the head should he shoot a ice bolt.

 

But Pitch could see nothing past his emotions, rearing and consuming as they were.

 

The shadows danced menacingly, rising higher with every breath. The sand solidified on his skin, providing a thick layer of armor. The faces on all those around him contorted in something skin to anger— and fear, he notes. It’s small, but there it was hiding just beneath the bravado.

 

_He can’t make us not believed in again, he can’t!_

 

As if that little fear was reason enough to attack him, weak as he was. _Damaged_ as he was, to go against all five. But that fear worked for him. It fueled him, made the aches in his body become duller, let him stand taller.

 

“We _knew_ we should have gotten rid of you once and for all!” Bunny says for them and they advance. Pitch has no choice but to go on the defensive, raising his shadows like walls of concrete that bounce the boomerang back. Pitch grunts as he jumps back, the wall crumbling into sand as Sandy punches it with a fist-shaped golden sand.

 

“Attacking the weak now?” Pitch jeers, his pupils dilate, swallowing up his golden irises to that only a sliver of the shining color remained. He looked _demonic_ and it played in his favor. “You _Guardians_ are nothing more than tyrants! Too scared you can’t beat me in a fair fight?” He taunts, grunting again as he was pushed back, but had to dodge a shot from behind him; the surrounded position gave him no favors.

 

 _“Hah!_ Tyrants!” North bellows out.

 

“The only tyrant here is you!” Tooth yells, coming in hot and Pitch growls, and falls through the shadows they make as they advance, coming up a few yards away, pulling his scythe from the shadows to fight with.

 

Pitch barely even thought about going after Jack, lagging behind as he was in these formations and half heartedly, amazingly at the complete obliviousness of the Guardians, using his staff when he deemed it necessary. The most prominent danger were the other four.

 

So it goes, Pitch’s blood boiling and rising, heart painfully hammering against his chest as he went head to head with the guardians, clash for clash. Pitch had barely registered when Jack’s attacks became more pronounced, purposeful, and it made him _angrier._  His thoughts limited to _block, attack, hurt them. Hurt them all!_

 

Blinded as he was, going after four of them that moved back, Jack, Tooth, Bunny, and North, that he didn’t see the one who could do the most damage.

 

It wasn’t until it was too late that he realized his mistake at his inattention.

 

Pitch’s eyes widen and he’s thrown forward from the impact and stumbles, his own sand dropping like someone had cut off his puppet strings. Everyone stilled, watching, waiting. Pitch’s eyes slowly drop down to his chest, and thereafter he doesn’t really remember if he made any noise.

 

The golden arrow, made thick with dream sand, stood out from his chest.

 

Pitch thinks he could hear a gasp somewhere near him, but he doesn’t keep his eyes torn from the _thing_ in him. He falls to his knees, breathing impossible as he takes hiccuping breaths. He waits, they all seem to, for the inevitable. Pitch certainly remembers how when Sandy was struck, the black sand devoured him like a poison until he was no more.

 

And so Pitch waits for it, waits for the gold sand to consume him and turn him to nothingness, bring him back to that numb, empty feeling.

 

But it never does.

 

Instead Pitch’s eyes go impossibly wide as from the wound black _stuff_ started to bleed, pupils constricted to black pinpricks. With a trembling hand Pitch touches it and it spreads over his fingers like tar, thick and heavy.

 

His breath hitches and nausea rolls through him. He chokes and he feels his throat clog. Pitch retches, feeling like whatever he had to throw up was stuck on the insides of his throat. When at last he coughs it out, it stuck to the inside of his mouth like caramel before oozing onto his hand.

 

Pitch watches in horrified fascination as the black tar moves on its own, trying to form a figure. His hand trembled terribly now, the other hand free to try and clutch at his cloak, getting soaked by the— could he even call it _blood?_ His blood?

 

Pitch gasps again, could barely breathe when more cried to crawl out from his throat, and he coughs and _retched_ but he still couldn’t breathe.

 

_He couldn’t breathe._

 

Blood pounded in his ears, his vision blurred, he couldn’t speak.

 

_He couldn’t breathe._

 

_He can’t breathe._

 

_He can’t—_


	5. Chapter 5

_“General,” the man before the throne was kneeled and at his rank he lifted his head. “Are you sure?”_

 

_“It would be the utmost privilege to take on this mission.”_

 

More black tar dripped from his mouth like molasses, Pitch now on his hands, back arched as if to help whatever is lodged in his throat to get out.

 

The golden arrow _burned_.

 

Like acid it slowly worked from the point of impact and outward, but the golden sand did not move and taint his body as it had done with Sandy. Slowly the arrow starts to come apart, like it was sand in an hourglass. It mixed with the tar, accumulating beneath his hunched body, and it turned just as black, even while the light fought to stay lit.

 

Unbeknownst to him, so focused as he was on _breathing_ that he didn’t realize the shadows started to move. It hissed, forming sand and fog, a choking miasma for the Guardians. And then it started to twirl around him, first close to his body and then slowly growing the more gunk he threw up.

 

That burned nearly as much as the arrow did.

 

The Guardians took a few steps back, all except Jack, who stood clutching at his staff a couple meters away, watching in abject horror, and though he would never say it, fear.

 

The sand burst into an angry tornado, swirling violently around him. Jack got caught in the tempus and he shut his eyes, stepping forward to get out of it.

 

_“Daddy, do you have to go?”_

 

_“Oh, love.” The General sighs, a helpless smile on his face. “I will be back before you know it, darling.” The General pets the girl on the head, tucking a strand of her lustrous dark hair behind her ear. “I’ll visit often.”_

 

_“Can I have a song before you leave?”  The girl bats her eyes, pouts her lips. The General chuckles, kissing her forehead._

 

_“Of course you may.”_

 

A small reprieve for the Nightmare King, sucking in laborious breaths between the expelling of each ball of gunk. Jack’s eyes impossibly wide as the golden sand mixed in the tornado with the shadows, making a glitchy scene of a memory, only just a few seconds before it was gone, but the voices still echoed in his ears.

 

_The General sighed, walking through the corridors of the prison he was left to guard. The nightmares hissed and growled from within the magical prisons, unable to go through the bars though they can fit._

 

_Bitter longing filled him and not for the first time since he had volunteered to do this he thought such a thing was a mistake._

 

_The General pulls out a locket from under his uniform and with the carefullest hands opened it to reveal his daughter._

 

_“Oh, Seraphina—”_

* * *

 

_“And as the foul beast struck—”  The General stops, hearing a knock on the front door. An inkling of detestment made itself known in his heart. They couldn’t even give him the time he wants to see his daughter?_

 

_Seraphina looked up to him as he stopped, eyes wide and impossibly glassy. “Can’t you finish the story?” She whines, sick with worry and yearning for more time together._

 

_The General smiles, though he doubts it reaches his eyes the same. He kisses her head. “Give me just a moment.” He left the comfort of their bed, setting the fairytale book down on the nightstand. It had been the first time he even had an inkling of a time to read to her, all those months gone. In vain, he goes downstairs to attempt and persuade the King’s guard to give him more time._

 

_More time with his daughter, more time to read to her._

 

 _He hasn’t seen her in_ months.

 

_But after a brief but heated argument, the General goes back upstairs and sits on the bed, facing his daughter instead of getting back into their comfy, cuddly position near the headboard._

 

_Seraphina frowns, but she had expected this. It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less._

 

_“You have to go?” She whines. Seraphina had already grown up to be a stunning young lady, but it never gets any harder as the months go by and she was still a child. The General’s heart broke at the sight and the tone of her voice. He barely withheld the deep sigh._

 

_“Yes,” the General says softly, simply, with the same tone._

_  
_ _“You can’t even finish the book?” He shook his head slowly, despondent at that as well. “When will you be back?”_

 

_“Oh, sweet daughter of mine. I don’t kno—”_

* * *

 

 _The General stands, surrounded by the very things he volunteered to guard, for the cause. To keep the children safe, to keep_ everyone _safe. The locket is open many a time now, taunting him and squeezing his heart._

 

_The shadows and darkness around him gave no indication of the time passed. And no one else had been given this duty for longer than a day so he could see his daughter. He doesn’t know if it’s been hours or days before he had last taken a break from watching these wretched, horrid things._

 

_“Daddy!” The General gasps, clasping closed the locket immediately before glancing around at where the voice had come._

 

_“Seraphina?”  He nearly whispers, eyes playing tricks as from within the cage of the blackest black, he sees her trapped within. “Darling?”_

 

 _“Help me Daddy!” She whimpers. “I’m scared.” Her eyes well with tears and the General couldn’t look away, his golden eyes wide and locked onto hers. He couldn’t think— though he subconsciously knew she couldn’t be in there with them, he_ knew, _but that did nothing to still his rapidly beating heart, fearing for his daughter. “They’re terrible— help me!”_

 

_Her voice swirled in his ears, louder and louder with every pump of blood rushing fiercely through him. The yearning consumed him, the fear of her well being ate at him._

 

_The General’s body pitches forward, unlocking the cage before he even realized it was a trick._

 

_With a sinister laugh the image of his daughter vanished, replaced by the most vile creatures he guarded. In seconds, he was overpowered. The nightmares entered him, the shadows consuming everything around him and in the lair, freeing their comrades and filling the prison with thick, cloying, black miasma._

 

_It choked him, breathing in the black shadows, swallowing it like water. His body shook with tremors as more and more overtook him, pulsing through his veins like bugs crawling through it._

 

_The locket was torn, lost in the dark depths of the prison and the world just kept getting blacker and blacker._

 

_Colder and colder._

 

_Within him the poison of the nightmare men—_

 

The tornado of  swirling black sand and shadows was stronger than anything they had ever felt before, even when Pitch was in control. _This_ wasn’t him, they realized. Whatever that arrow had done, whatever it had unleashed—

 

 _“Jack!!”_ Toothiana yells, covering her eyes from the sand before it got into her eyes, holding onto North’s arm as she tries to make out Jack’s figure from within the storm, worried.

 

Jack’s eyes couldn’t leave the Nightmare King’s form. Watching until the golden sand fell away, no longer stopping him from throwing up black gunk, liquid, _blood,_ or whatever it was, wretching horribly, making a thick, spreading pool beneath him that moved and _cried._

 

It send shivers down Jack’s spine, hearing whispered screaming and screeching from the tar that was once in him, soon after gaining substance and joining the swirling tornado. Pitch’s skin seemed to pale sickeningly, and moments after he seemed to catch his breath, it hitches again in a cry—

 

His skin cracks loudly, not the armor he had put on at the beginning of battle, but _his skin,_ starts to crack and shatter like it was made of calcified bone, now breaking. As it sickeningly chips away, it turns to sand and joins the rest in the wind. Underneath was more skin, black and charred.

 

If Jack could throw up, he would. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

 

It chips away more and more—

 

Pitch opens his mouth to scream, mouth tilted back—

 

 _Shadows_ , thinner than the black tar but thicker than steam, rush out like spirits possessed told to leave the body they inhabited. _Too many._ Way too many to fit inside one man, jumped and joined the rest.

 

The shrieks turned louder, shadows forming humanesque figures— running around, jumping from the storm.

 

_The Nightmare King stood, eyes the most intense eclipses, burning and crazed, upon the ruins of the Lunar Castle. His eyes flick and shimmer, seeking the sky out for signs of life as his nightmare men destroy life on the castle grounds._

 

 _The fear he felt around him exhilarating, consuming in the best ways. It filled up his cup and it overflowed, the fear_ delicious _, filling up his chest in a symphony of cries of the subjects left doomed to be devoured._

 

_There— at the corner of his eyes the Nightmare King sees a flutter of light of a stellar ship. With his sharp teeth he grins, lets out an earth-shattering shriek, and with his men he attacks—_

* * *

 

_The Nightmare King hisses and growls, hands like monstrous claws as he crawls at the ship, wrecking it as his men slow down the sail. He could feel the fear ballooning up like pride in his chest, more power. The man was so engulfed in the feeling he didn't see the shimmer of light sent to fight him._

 

_It struck him in the chest, pushed him back and off the ship. The Nightmare King easily got his bearings, eyes narrowing at the small knight nearly half his size, probably a boy that had not yet reached adulthood, ready to sacrifice his own life to protect that of the Prince._

 

_Hissing, the Nightmare King shoots himself forward, ready to shred him to pieces, to devour him soul and all._

 

_But the knight put up quite the fight. Although young, he was skilled. And it was the Nightmare King’s folly to underestimate his opponent._

 

_The child turned into a spear of light and shot into his chest. It hit its mark, through and through, sending him hurling back into the closest planet they fought near. The ship that held the Prince crashing into the next one._

 

_The shadows followed it’s king, however. The spear proved more powerful than anything else, and it send him crashing into the earth. Further than the earth’s crust— further and further down into layers of earth and rock and confining him there as the opening from where he fell in crumbled and closed on itself—_

* * *

 

 _The only thing he could remember was fear. And darkness._  
  
_He was surrounded in it. Drowning in it._  
  
_Fear gripped at his chest, clawed up his throat and he wanted to scream._  
  
_Faint feelings of demons clawing at him, pulling him into the darkness. A faint scream, a shrill shriek of a little girl and a plea for help. His head ached._  
  
_"Pitch Black."_  
  
_The darkness whispered. It called over and over to him._  
  
_Pitch Black._  
  
_Fear left him. The cold biting black was comforting around him. Inviting and even soft._  
  
_Everywhere he looked, the darkness around him was prevalent._  
_  
And for some reason, he felt an overwhelming sense of happiness. Of power._

 


	6. Chapter 6

Pitch’s body was failing, it seemed. It was cracking and falling and _burning._ His body shook with tremors as the last of the tar dripped out of his mouth, slipping down his chin. He felt _raw_ on the basest of means. Like he was scrubbed raw, or his skin was scrubbed with a cheese grater, or an uneven knife. His throat felt cut, lungs heaving with the attempt to breathe, shallow though it was.

 

The world around him he couldn’t hear. Not the screams of the shadows or the screeching cries of war from nightmare men.

 

The Guardians, on their part, were able to get their wits together when the shadows formed men, trying to flee anywhere they could. All four, excluding Jack who kept his eyes on the dying Nightmare King, went after the figures.

 

The Guardians huff and grunt with the effort at getting all of them, many of them changing into sand and shadows.

Those that weren’t too quick to run, however, burst in a ball of light when they were hit. The sand falling away like dust to reveal a child, ghostly and gold, staring with wide eyes at those that freed them. Seconds later they disappear, finally free from their centuries long prison.

 

The black winds died down, revealing Pitch and Jack at its center. Jack, staring at Pitch with fearful presentiment. The shadows and sand had fled, mostly. Some sticking around to feed off their fear.

 

In a last ditch effort to preserve his pride, or just to prove he could overcome whatever had just happened, Pitch stood trembling on his knees, about to stand. The Guardians were all on alert, ready for the fight to continue.

 

What they weren’t ready for was the earth shattering, pained scream as one _final_ thing tore itself from Pitch’s chest.

 

 _That_ was had the Guardians lowering their weapons in awe.

 

The _thing_ that crawled out from his chest, _his soul,_ was not a _thing_ at all. It took seconds for it to fully leave Pitch’s body, but it stood, albeit a bit wobbly, on its feet a few feet away from Pitch’s body.

 

The Nightmare King and the Knight that banished him once before stare at each other, both faces of confusion, both unable to put into words.  But Pitch had nothing left in him, now, to do anything but shut his eyes and fall to the ground.

 

_“Nightlight.”_

 

Jack jumps, hearing the moon speak and he finally tears his eyes away from the dead Nightmare King.

 

The Knight in question turns around at the call of his name, body shimmering with white stardust, hair the whistest of snow. His eyes were nearly white. When he looked up at the moon he let out a tinkling laugh, like the sound of laughing bell flowers.

 

 _“Prince,”_ Nightlight says with his boyish, happy, voice, not aged a year despite being trapped within the heart of the Nightmare King all those centuries.

 

The Guardians watch with amazement as Nightlight jumps into the sky, staff in hand, and flies to the moon, looking like a ball of soft light.

 

 _A night light._ Jack’s brain unhelpfully tells him because he couldn’t process anything else.

 

It felt like hours later before Jack looked from the moon back to the Nightmare King, assuming the body to have dissipated away.

 

But it was still there, and Jack stood and stared at the unmoving body until the early morning when the other Guardians finally thought to leave.

 

“Jack,” Toothiana whispers to his left but he keeps his eyes glued to the pale flesh of his once-enemy. No longer did his skin hold the taint of the shadows, just regular, pale flesh. Dark circles under his closed eyes, as if all this time he had no sleep. His hair the darkest of browns, no longer styled by the shadows and sand.

 

“C’mon mate, it’s time to go.” Bunny stood at his right, grabbing hold of his arm and tugging gently. Jack stood his ground, waiting for Pitch’s body to disappear, turn to dust, _anything_ , before he leaves the scene. “He’s dead, Jack.” Bunny tries to say but Jack jerks his head in a rough shake, his body pushing forward two feet to get a closer look.

 

Jack could hear the other three whispering, Sandy’s tinkling sand twitching in symbols. But Jack didn’t care.

 

Dropping to his knees in front of the body, he looks closer.

 

From the brow, down the slope of his nose, and then going further down, to the v of his cloak. Jack sucks in a choked breath and his head snaps up to look to his friends, eyes impossibly wide.

 

“H-he’s alive.”

 

The other’s eyes widen, unsure.

 

“Are you sure?” North practically whispers.

 

Jack looks down again, staring at his chest and watches for the most minimal of movement. He sees it. It was barely there, but he saw it. The Nightmare King’s chest expanding and contracting with shallow breathing.

 

Jack’s wide eyes go up to meet theirs.

 

_He’s alive._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Hope you enjoyed the read! Lmao. It took me 5 years to finish this but I finished it in one day. Wow._

The room they kept him in was pleasant, for a lack of a better word. It was small, but spacious, near the top of North’s dwelling. There was a large window that had a seat right under it, cushioned specifically for Jack as he watched over the dead.

 

Except, he wasn’t dead.

 

Pitch was lying, unmoving, in the singular bed in the room. Tucked in precariously, a glass of water at his desk which he might want when he wakes. But he never does. He lays in the position they put him in, the only way to know he was alive was the miniscule movement of his chest when he breathes.

 

It had a rhythm all on it’s own. Three breath counts in, three breath counts out. Never once when Jack was watching diligently over him had it stuttered with a nightmare or sighed deeply in his sleep.

 

Pitch has been this way for the past ten years.

 

It seems as he was, the curse of aging did not touch him. Nor was he left wilting from starvation or thirst.

 

Jack watches him from his perch at the window, leaning against the chill and letting that comfort him.  

 

_Ten years._

 

Jack’s mind always reels when he thinks of it.

 

Ten years had past when Sandy struck him with that golden arrow, one made with specific imitation of the very arrow that killed him. Ten years prior when they all thought that would be the best course of action: to rid themselves of the Nightmare King. They thought, surely what happened to Sandy would happen to Pitch; He would disburse in sand of the blackest black and be transformed into light, swallowed by Sandy’s dream sand.

 

But then the unimaginable had happened.

 

Jack’s chest clenches at the persistent reminder, laying wrung and wasted on the bed.

 

 _We were all someone before we were chosen._ Tooth had told him before and for some reason it had never occured to Jack that Pitch was once someone, too.  

 

_That he was a man, once._

 

With a family, with a duty.

 

That too, was the most bitter of reminders. The things he saw in that swirling vortex, the emotions that seemed to balloon in his chest that weren’t his with every pass of the shadows through him. Thinking about Pitch and the events following and prior consumed nearly his whole waking consciousness.

 

All five guardians took time to watch over Pitch when it was their time, but Jack most of all seemed to neglect his so-called duties of Guardianship in favor of watching over the sleeping figure. He took some of their shifts, saying their job was more important. The snow will fall with or without him. Children will have fun, with or without his influence.

 

The nightmares released from Pitch’s body were wild and free, and it was very hard to find semblance of any kind of pattern of their attacks. And thus, it was Sandy’s job to keep a watchful, even more cautious, eye on their sleeping youths to turn those nightmares into the sweetest of dreams.

 

Jamie had grown up in the first long slumber of the Nightmare King. He went away to college, moved back into town and settled down with an uptight girl he had met when he came back. But somewhere between that fateful night they defeated Pitch and him being away for college, he had lost the ability to see Jack.

 

It had hurt, of course. Jack didn’t know how it happened, if Jamie’s belief of a youthful memory didn’t hold stronger or if he had forgotten altogether. When Jamie had called out to him when he first came home, Jack was ecstatic and he met him with gusto and excitement. But Jamie did not see him, standing right before his very eyes.

 

Jamie, for all his confusion at neither hearing nor seeing the frost spirit, didn’t seem too disheartened. He wasn’t as devastated as Jack had once thought he would be--- or would have been if he forgot (for Jack thought Jamie would be able to see him until he left the earth). Jamie hums and shrugs his shoulders seemingly to himself before heading back inside, to the knavish looking girl sitting on the couch.

 

After that half-assed attempt, Jamie never once really tried to call out to him again. And after a while, Jack had stopped checking up on him.

 

Don’t make someone a priority who’s making you an option, right?

 

That was fifteen years ago.

 

Jamie would now be thirty five years old, and the last he had seen of him a couple years back was he was married to that soul-sucking wretched thing and had a couple of kids, raised to believe neither in Jack Frost nor in the other Guardians. That hurt, too, on behalf of his Guardians in siblinghood.

 

How everything had ended up in such disarray Jack had no idea. By all accounts the death of the Nightmare King should have made a Golden Age come about, like after Pitch’s defeat during the Dark Ages did. Instead, nightmares roamed without pattern, without governance, and without bias to whom their victims would be. Kids have grown up and forgotten their heros, the Guardian’s reign still clear but nonetheless their power had shrunk as the kids become adults and less and less instill the values of these beliefs of them in their spawns.

 

That was what they had to show for their supposed heroics.

 

A slumbering King, no longer the King of Nightmares and Bad Dreams.

 

And Jack wonders, and wonders, and _wonders,_ if there was anything he could have done before Sandy shot that arrow to understand a fellow spirit.

 

A spirit, he recalls now, that was alone in every sense and thought. Neither he nor the other guardians, and it seemed neither the other spirits roaming the earth, would ever give him the time of day. It had driven Jack mad before and he could not fathom the alienation the Nightmare King faced throughout the centuries. The same spirit Jack had turned from on that Antarctic slope.

 

How clearly he could recall now, the waning of the King’s voice as he spoke of longing for a family. The disarmed expression, the slope of his lips in distress. And how, in his own feelings of rejection, he had not given a thought to him.

 

How later, after Pitch’s defeat, they stood around watching as Nightmares crept upon the slopes, sniffing at the air for the miniscule scent of fear. How they watched Pitch savagely be chased by his own creations and ensnared, dragged down like a demon was to hell. Jack had shuddered at the scene, hair standing on the back on his neck in a shiver when even cold did not bother him.

 

But one glance to his new companions, he noticed he could not share in the sympathy of their opposition.

 

They had watched the horror in near admiration and full triumph. As though the irony of the Nightmare King being devoured by his own beasts was the sweetest revenge.

 

Once Jack had calmed down from his high of the victory, some years later, a niggling feeling of guilt started to worm and fester in his gut. The Nightmare King was gone and the nightmares across the world were few and far in between, but Jack had come to a conclusion that what the King faced was altogether too disturbing to be left alone.

 

Thus he sought out the King some fifteen years later, hoping beyond hope to find him plotting their demise yet again, like he was some kind of evil doer in a cartoon, always uncaring of how badly his plans go and making new ones. But what he had found made his heart ache for no other reason than guilt, he told himself.

 

The man he met was no more than a husk of his old self, with some vague memories of who they were but none of the emotions that were attached to them.

 

Jack had hoped Pitch would yell and scream, they could argue it out and then, somehow, by divine intervention, come to a conclusion and become friends. A family, maybe, something that Pitch had desperately wanted. Enough to plunge the world into darkness again, so that no one could feel the warmth of familial love.

 

But those detached and monotonous reactions ate at his heart, his soul. _They had done that._ They had broken a man that seemed unbreakable. They had ignored the warning signs, kept to their own niche as if better than the rest.

 

Even now Jack thinks back on how the Moon told them he was to become a guardian and how they automatically, even if there was resistance on Bunny’s part, invited him in. How easily he landed himself in North’s Workshop with just a word by someone who put everything into play, from the very beginning.

 

How everything, _everything,_ was an direct or indirect fault of the Man in the Moon.

 

_“That’s why we collect the teeth, Jack. They hold the most important memories of childhood.”_

 

_“We had everyone's here. Yours too.”_

* * *

  


_“Tooth, Tooth!” Jack calls as he lands on the pads of his feet upon a pillar’s dish in her palace._

 

_The entire place was alight with pink and yellow hues, reflecting off the mountains around them. Baby Tooths fluttering and chittering as they twirl around him in cheer before going on their way._

 

_Tooth looks up from hovering near an open slot. She closes it and flies down, but does not land, as she greets him._

 

_“Hey Jack.” Her smile was a little off, as it always seemed to be in Jack’s presence, currently. Like she was walking on eggshells trying not to set him off as Bunny seemed to do so often these days._

 

_“You have everyone’s teeth here, don’t you?” Tooth nods slowly, skeptical. Jack takes a breath. “Can you find Pitch’s?” Tooth’s eyes widened._

 

_“No—“ she started, not even thinking about it. Her sentence cut off by Jack and his scowl._

 

_“Do you?” Jack presses. “Do you even have them?” Buzzing nervously, Tooth purses her lips before she calls some of her workers to find it._

 

_“It won’t help, Jack. Whatever you’re thinking it could just as easily blow up in your face.” Tooth says softly, perching on her petite feet to rub at Jack’s arm. “He’s the Nightmare King. Guys like that don’t change.”_

 

_Jack didn’t take comfort in this, he couldn’t._

 

“You _were the one that said we were all someone before we were chosen.” He steps away from her attempted comfort hold._

 

 _“Yes, Jack. The_ Guardians _were someone before they were all chosen. Pitch was—“_

 

_“Pitch was someone.” Jack says with no room for argument. Tooth looked at him with what he could only think of was pity. Like everything that happened just made him crazier, like he was insane for thinking Pitch was anything more than the embodiment of evil._

 

 _But they didn’t know Pitch like he did, didn’t know what it felt like to be_ invisible _to everyone. To be alone for hundreds of years. They’ve always had each other._

 

_But Jack and Pitch has more in common than just their unwanted solitude. It lay in their lost memories. Jack had been reborn without them. And Pitch… Jack refuses to believe that Pitch would delight in these atrocities if he knew what he was doing, if he remembered who he had forgotten._

 

_Jack holds onto the small flickering lights that showed him a father and daughter, the show of yearning to go home._

 

_How Pitch had been devoured by the duty of his knightship._

 

_“Pitch was someone, too.”_

 

_Tooth says nothing but kept her gaze piteous. Baby Tooth flew near, buzzing and chirping in quick processions. Tooth’s eyes widen in surprise._

 

“Nowhere?” _She gasped. “Are you sure? Not even in the caves?” Baby Tooth chirps more, taking a seat on Tooth’s shoulder. Baby Tooth quiets and looks to Jack, apologetic._

 

_“I’m sorry, Jack… it looks like we don’t have his teeth.” Jack was about to argue. “We’ve never seemed to have them.” Jack’s mouth slackens at the information, deflating. He was so desperate to know more, but this also solidified his belief in what he saw._

 

_“Pitch was from a different world.” Jack says quietly, nodding in thanks to their attempt. “Thanks anyway.”_

 

* * *

 

It’s always easier to place blame on others. But in this case Jack would consider it justified.

 

If the memories were something he could consider to be true, then the blame lies not with Pitch, who was doing his duties as general, but with the previous king of the Lunar Castle who had given the role of guarding the nightmares solely to him, without help.

 

Surely the king had to know how mentally taxing it was on one person? Surely the man was more sympathetic to his general’s plight and family situation?

 

But to not give more than a few _hours_ for them to spend together, that was cruel.

 

Knowing all of this created unease in Jack’s heart.

 

And though the Man in the Moon was not the king that kept its general practically confined to his duty, he was the one to send Tooth, and North, and Bunny, and Sandy  and _him,_ to fight against Pitch.

 

Instead of—

 

He doesn’t know. Instead of explaining how he came to be? Instead of saying his father’s general had been swallowed by demons? Instead of saying he needed _help._

 

Jack pulls his knees closer to his chest, hugging them tightly. He pulls his hood up over his head, staring at Pitch’s chest and counting the rise and fall of his breaths.

 

It was getting darker outside the window and with a single glance Jack saw the moon peeking over the horizon. With a minor scowl Jack turns bodily to shut the blinds and pulls the curtains closed.

 

If the Man in the Moon thinks he could spy on a sleeping man without Jack getting in the way, he had another thing coming. Though, to be distinct, Jack feverently watching over Pitch as he slumbers wasn’t the same thing.

 

Jack was there for… _Moral_ support. For if and _when_ he (because he _will_ ) wakes up. He was a Guardian to him, now. Even if the others only entertained the idea.

 

A knock at the door had Jack raising his eyes from Pitch’s chest. There stood North with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk in either hand.

 

“Hey there, Jack.” His voice is a low, gentle rumble as he steps into the room. His steps were light despite his big and heavy frame, like he was trying to walk on _actual_ eggshells without breaking them. “I thought I might come see how you do. And give this. You been here since last week. Why not take break?”

 

Jack acquiesced, happy that the nightstand was close enough to his seat with only a few feet between him and the bed, that he could reach out a hand to grab a cookie. He paused before he bit it.

 

“This wasn’t in the elve’s mouths, was it?” Jack asks in favor of ignoring North’s question. North laughs, deep and low as he grabs his belly.

 

“No,” North shook his head, an easy going smile on his face as he thinks Jack had lightened up and started to joke. “Phil made, I brought up.”

 

Jack watches for any signs of a lie before he bit down into the cookie, the chocolate chips melting in his mouth. It was nice, even though he didn’t need to eat or drink, it was still comforting. In a passing thought, he wonders if Pitch had ever been able to try it out.

 

“Thanks…”

 

North leaned against the wall near him, eyes gliding between Pitch’s sleeping figure. Jack, and the newly closed window. He says nothing of it, though, since the first time he had asked Jack had practically blown a fuse at opening it when the moon was out.

 

“Jack…” North starts and trails off. He sighs softly.  “You should rest too. Pitch wake up or maybe not. You are still Guardian, you need to save strength too.”

 

Jack doesn’t argue or agree, nibbling bit by bit on his freshly baked cookies. He could hear the worry in North’s voice. Hear it echoing from the other Guardians.

 

North and Sandy the most supportive. Sandy had even gone as far as trying to give Pitch good dreams. But the sand didn’t twirl around his head, it fell like oil on water.

 

Tooth was less than enthusiastic, having a giant grudge against his past actions.

 

And Bunny was no help at all. At the beginning he and Jack had gotten into many, _many,_ fights regarding Jack’s actions. It got so bad the yetis needed to break them apart. There was one time they _did_ attack each other, four years ago, after Bunny had grown tired of Jack’s apparent greater sense of duty to their nemesis than to his duties as a Guardian.

 

Battered and bruised, Jack didn’t leave Pitch’s bedside for a whole month and he scarcely saw Bunny following that incident. If they held team meetings, Jack would either be briefed at a later hour or he would stay on the support posts far, _far_ away from the Pookah.

 

“I’m fine.” Jack murmurs quietly. As a spirit he really doesn’t need to sleep, either.

 

_“Didn't they tell you, Jack? It's great being a Guardian! But there's a catch. If enough kids stop believing, everything your friends protect— wonder, hopes, and dreams— it all goes away. And little by little, so do they.”_

 

He does, however, need people to believe in him. He already feels weaker as the years drag on, especially in the encouching months as he stayed cooped up in North’s workshop, waiting for Pitch to wake up. He’s not in danger of disappearing any time soon or anything, and as annoying as the worried glances and whispers of the Guardians are, he didn’t feel compelled to stir up belief among the children for his own sake.

 

North hums as if he thought about it, nodding his head while he had his huge arms crossed. “I’ll send Phil to bring blanket for you.”

 

Jack nods, watching the door close behind North before his eyes slid back to his current object of worry.

 

Jack breathes in a deep breath and exhales.

* * *

 

“Be realistic, Jack!” Bunny growls, crowding into his space as they stood in the hallway that led to Pitch’s residential room. “You can’t stay cooped up in here! You’ll _die!”_

 

Jack scowls, hunching up his shoulders. “I don’t care.” Bunny stutters, eyes wide with disbelief.

 

“Y-you don’t _care?”_ He scoffs. “Of course you don’t!” He says sarcastically. “Because only _you_ would not care about being believed in after you spent _three hundred years_ trying to make others believe in you!” Bunny seethed. “No, you know what. I’ll deal with this myself.” He turns as if to go into the room.

 

Jack growls and a gust of wind came from nowhere. The Pookah shivers and cries out as he falls forward, his feet frozen to the floor in uneven ice. Jack steps around him, glaring. He ignores Bunny’s stutters at forming a sentence. He keeps his gaze until he steps into the room, slamming the door shut.

 

* * *

 

Jack takes a breath, huffing it out in a sigh.

 

He was so _tired._ But of course what else could he expect when a few years more had passed with Pitch in comatose.

 

Throughout the silence of the years Jack entertained the idea of what could have happened if he had agreed to being with Pitch. If he had just been a tad more desperate for any kind of belief in his spirit that he would take people fearing him.

 

_“What goes together better than cold and dark?”_

 

Jack had even entertained the idea of spreading nightmares just to see if it would wake Pitch up.

 

Waiting for a spirit was nothing. A decade passes by in a blink of an eye, centuries pass in seconds to their time. It still slowly drove him to insanity, enough that he thinks up those absurd ideas and justifications for them.

 

Jack had been so tired recently he stares at the empty space near Pitch, tempted to lay down with him.

 

Jack stands, finally giving in. He took the two steps from his seat under the window to stand next the bed and hesitates for a half second.

 

Jack’s eyes go wide as he counts the seconds of his inhale.

 

_One. Two. Three… Four. Five._

 

Jack’s eyes dart to his face, watching the flutter of his lashes, the _first_ change in seventeen years. Pitch’s breath released in a deep sigh.

 

Jack waits, breath caught, for Pitch to open his eyes.


End file.
